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In writing and politicking, it’s best not to think about it, just do it.

Gore Vidal

In America, the race goes to the loud, the solemn, the hustler. If you think you’re a great writer, you must say that you are.
GORE VIDAL

Greatness Loud Race Yourself
It is true, as Sartre once wrote, referring to French Army atrocities in Algeria, that the real tragedy in our time is that any of us can be, interchangeably, victim or torturer.
GORE VIDAL

Change Reality Time Torture Victim
Actually, I can’t remember when I was not writing.
GORE VIDAL

Myself Remember Writing
Envy is the central fact of American life.
GORE VIDAL

Central Fact Life
As for civil liberties, any one who is not vigilant may one day find himself living, if not in a police state, at least in a police city.
GORE VIDAL

Civil Finding Liberty Live Police
All in all, I would not have missed this century for the world.
GORE VIDAL

Missing Myself World
Today’s public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can’t read them either.
GORE VIDAL

Evidence Figure Reading Speech
All children alarm their parents, if only because you are forever expecting to encounter yourself.
GORE VIDAL

Children Expectation Forever
You hear all this whining going on, ‘Where are our great writers?’ The thing I might feel doleful about is: Where are the readers?
GORE VIDAL

Greatness Reading Writing Yourself
It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, no matter how suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true.
GORE VIDAL

Age Believe Exercise Imagination Spirit
Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.
GORE VIDAL

Confidence Personality Style Yourself
Certainly ‘The Judgment of Paris’ was the novel in which I found my own voice.
GORE VIDAL

Finding Judgement Myself Novel Voice
I am only at home in the present.
GORE VIDAL

Home Oneself Present
In the German concentration camps, Jews wore yellow stars while homosexuals wore pink lambdas.
GORE VIDAL

Camp Concentration Discrimination German Oppression
Until very recently, the artist was a magician who did his magic in public view but kept himself and his effects a matter of mystery.
GORE VIDAL

Artist Himself Magic Mystery Public View
Having no contemporaries left means you cannot say, ‘Well, so-and-so will like this,’ which you do when you’re younger. You realize there is no so-and-so anymore. You are your own so-and-so. There is a bleak side to it.
GORE VIDAL

Contemporary Realize Young Yourself

In writing and politicking, it’s best not to think about it, just do it.

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In writing and politicking, it’s best not to think about it, just do it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Gore Vidal Quotes